


Hunted

by OptimisticBeth



Series: Holiday Collection [4]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Kissing, Monsters, Secret Crush, Teenagers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 16:24:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21057419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OptimisticBeth/pseuds/OptimisticBeth
Summary: Rey just wanted to go to a party with her friends in a pretty borrowed dress.How was she to know that a bunch of teenagers in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with no adult supervision would attract monsters?





	Hunted

**Author's Note:**

> Started this for last year's Halloween but never finished it. It was originally going to have a lot more action scenes, but I like this version better.

Rey blamed Poe.

It was a good policy, given that Poe was often to blame for things, but this went a little beyond getting tipsy on peach schnapps and chewed out by Finn’s mom.

Which had, until an hour ago, been Rey’s worst public moment.

A faint, rough scratching and huffing came from the room beyond the closet door, and Rey pressed further into the warm body next to her. Large hands held her hips, their steadiness helping soothe her own trembling.

She tried to pretend her friends had stuffed her into this small, dark closet for a stupid party game. That the large body pressed against her because a boy wanted to kiss her.

The scent of blood wrecked her fantasy, and she shuddered, trying not to think about the sophomore girl who'd had her throat ripped out.

One of those large hands ran up and down her back as they both tried to breathe silently.

She’d known _ of _Ben Solo before tonight — he was a little bit infamous at school for ditching, and she’d heard he’d fought a couple of seniors as a freshman, and no one had ever bothered him again after that — but she’d never spoken to him. In fact, his first words to her had been a very sudden, “That’s a nice dress,” as the farmhouse’s door hinges had creaked and begun to give way despite the heavy furniture they’d pushed in front of it. It had held the creature long enough for them to arm themselves, at least.

“In case we die,” he’d added when she'd only stared at him. “You should know. It’s a nice dress. You look nice.”

Rey had idiotically replied, “I-It’s not mine.”

Then Finn had leaned around Poe where they’d stood shoulder-to-shoulder, armed with wooden chair legs Ben had shoved into their hands, and said, “I think the phrase you’re looking for is, ‘Thank you.’”

Rey had flushed almost as red as the borrowed dress. “Oh. Um, thank you.”

Ben had shrugged, eyes narrowed on the door and body tensing as the wood had given a final, resounding _ crack_. “Swore I wasn’t going to do this shit anymore,” he’d muttered, his voice so low that Rey had almost missed it. She’d wanted to ask what he meant, but then the creature had burst through, all red eyes and dripping fangs and leathery wings, and there’d been nothing but screaming and blood and adrenaline.

She could hear the way those leathery wings dragged across the carpet and knocked things over. A moment of screeching violence on what was probably a dresser, and then the room went quiet.

Huffing, sniffing, and again the leathery drag and soft thump as it searched for prey.

For _ them_.

The creature moved closer… closer… and Ben pulled Rey tighter against him, as if he could shield her with his body.

Warm breath washed across her face, and lips brushed her eyebrow, her nose. She tilted her face up, eager for human contact, to feel anything besides terror, and met Ben’s lips.

She shook in his arms as something brushed against the closet door, and silent tears began to fall down her cheeks.

In another room, a ringtone blared, and the creature snarled and banged into what sounded like _ everything _in the room on its way out.

Rey wasn’t sure when Ben stopped kissing her, but her heart jolted when she saw the closet door pop open under his hand. The creature was still making too much noise to hear them, and Rey followed on trembling legs and silent bare feet as he guided her toward the hallway and dipped to pick up the weapon he’d lost earlier.

There shouldn’t be anyone else in the house. Poe ought to have everyone in the storm cellar by now, tucked safely away to await daylight.

They’d killed the first one. They hadn’t realized there’d been another until someone had screamed upstairs.

Ben led Rey toward the noise instead of away from it, grabbing up another weapon from the bloody corpse of a girl she’d had math with the year before. He handed it to her, and Rey didn’t complain about the blood on it.

She didn’t need the finger he put to his lips to remind her to stay quiet as they approached the open doorway.

Ben glanced inside, pulled back, and held his weapon against his chest for a moment, eyes closed. When he opened them, there was nothing but fierce determination.

He turned and glided on silent feet into the room. A monstrous shriek made Rey jerk forward, not sure what she could do with a kitchen knife but willing to try. It was the same foolhardy instinct that had made her stay with Ben when he’d told everyone to get to the storm cellar while he distracted the creature.

Rey didn’t think the knife she held would even work on that tough hide, but Ben didn’t need her help anyway. The way he dodged deadly claws and thrust the wood under the creature’s ribcage was almost superhuman. It was smooth, practiced, and she wondered, not for the first time, how the _ hell _he knew what to do against these things.

She thought he’d take a moment to catch his breath, but the next moment he had her wrist and was dragging her through the house, searching rooms until he found the entrance to the basement. He didn’t turn on any lights, closed and locked the door behind them, and Rey was careful not to trip on the squeaky stairs.

A bit of moonlight filtered through the dirty glass of an egress window, and Rey gave her eyes a moment to adjust as she heard Ben moving around. A moment later, and the moonlight disappeared to be replaced by the brighter light of Ben’s phone. He’d put a bit of cardboard up in front of the window and busied himself putting more up until he was satisfied with his work.

When he finished, he turned and looked at her.

Rey stood where he’d left her at the bottom of the stairs, hugging herself against the basement’s chill and wishing she’d worn something more sensible. She'd had to abandon her heels for stealth, and her toes were already starting to go numb. She tried not to think about the stickiness she'd picked up from the floors upstairs and exactly what substance she'd been tracking across the house.

Ben moved toward her, careful like he was trying not to spook her, and gently removed the knife from her white-knuckled grip. He set it on a toolbox nearby and cupped her shoulders in his hands.

The heat against her skin felt so good that she stumbled into his arms and let him hug her. She wanted to burrow into him, wrap him around her like a coat. Her shivering intensified, and she didn’t know if it was the cold or the adrenaline or the shock catching up with her.

Maybe all three.

“I didn’t want to die without kissing you,” he whispered into her hair.

She looked up at him, surprised, and caught a vulnerability in his eyes she hadn’t expected. “You don’t even know me.”

He smiled a little and brushed her hair behind her ears. “You’re Rey Niima. You wear ratty sweatshirts and usually have grease under your nails.” He touched one of the curls that had undoubtedly fallen limp during all the fighting and the running and the terror. “I’ve never seen you wear your hair down before.” His mouth curved up on one side, and his finger trailed down her cheek. “I always figured you thought makeup was a type of quiz.”

Rey rolled her eyes, and his smile grew.

“You also stand between others and danger, and you don’t hesitate to run straight at it.”

She shifted a little under the warmth of his regard. “Well… so did you.”

“I come from a long line of monster hunters. You’re just…” he shrugged, looking at her like she’d done something remarkable. “A girl.”

It wasn’t an insult. He seemed to be in awe of her.

Rey shifted under his gaze and remembered what he’d muttered to himself earlier. “You said you weren’t going to do this anymore.”

He huffed a soft laugh. “Yeah, well. Can’t always avoid it.” He looked down and seemed to only then realize she was barefoot. “Shit. Here. I think I saw a blanket.”

It was a rough blanket filled with dirt and wood shavings, but it held in the heat when Ben settled onto the cold cement and draped it over Rey on his lap. She curled on top of him, trying to get as much warmth into her frozen toes as she could.

Ben ran his hands up and down her arms, his voice rougher than it had been. “Better?”

She nodded and pressed her cold nose into his neck. “Yeah.”

He fiddled with his phone for a moment, leaving the screen unlocked to provide light, then wrapped his arms back around her. “I noticed you at school.”

Rey fought the urge to bury her head under the blanket. “Good noticed?”

His arms tightened. “Very good.”

Her thoughts swirled, and she couldn’t quite picture big, intimidating Ben Solo crushing on her. Instead of asking _why_, she asked something else she'd been wanting to know. “What were those things?”

“Vampires.” His hands moved over her back again, trying to warm her. The dress was pretty, but it had not been designed for practicality. “Those are the soldiers. They don’t have much in the way of critical thinking, and they need a master vampire to rein them in or they’ll go on rampages like tonight.”

“And you know about this because… your family fights monsters?”

Ben nodded. “My uncle specializes in vampires. His father was taken by a master vampire ages ago, and my uncle had to kill him.”

Rey turned to look up at him. “I’m so sorry.”

Ben shrugged. “It was before I was born. It made my uncle a legend in monster hunting circles, though. See, his father was a warlock, which meant he didn’t become a soldier when he was turned. He kept his ability to think, to strategize. He facilitated a reign of terror that decimated a lot of the hunters across the country. My mom is still trying to build numbers back up.” He looked down at her, face drawn into worry lines. “They’ll try to recruit you if they know how much you helped tonight.”

Rey was quiet for a moment, thinking about what it would be like to belong to a monster-hunting community. “Would that be so bad?”

He curled around her a little more. “It’s almost impossible to get out, Rey. Even if you _ can _walk away, you’ll still see signs of monsters everywhere and feel compelled to help.” He took a shaky breath. “You’d spend your entire life in the shadows, never able to connect with people who don’t know the truth, never having a normal life. A normal childhood. Your kids will get pulled into it, their kids, their kids’ kids. It’s forever, Rey.”

She reached up to cup his cheek, and he leaned into the touch. “It sounds lonely.”

The corners of his lips drew tight with emotion. “We can pretend that you got stuck in here with me. That I had to protect you. That you didn’t do anything to help.”

The whisper was so desperate that she couldn’t be entirely angry at him for suggesting she play a helpless damsel. She’d fought right beside him when he’d killed the first vampire. She’d stayed with him to watch his back because _ someone _had to. But she thought about it, about what he’d told her. She thought about a life sentence, isolation, choosing a future for her kids where they knew the boogeyman was real.

But what it came down to was simple. “There are monsters in the shadows. I’ll never be able to forget that, and I’ll never be comfortable unless I know I can fight back.”

“What would you tell your family? How would you explain what you do? Why you have new scars every time they see you?”

Rey gave him a soft, pained smile. “I’m an orphan, Ben. I don’t have any family.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and leaned his head back against the wall. Finally, he breathed a curse. “You’re a perfect recruit.” He cursed again. “I’m so sorry, Rey.”

She gripped his chin to turn his face back to her. “If you hadn’t been here, I’d have been eaten.”

The regret in his eyes didn’t leave. “I’m sorry monsters are real.”

“Not your fault.”

“No. But I’m still sorry. You deserve better than this.”

She turned in his lap, wincing when her knees touched the cold cement, and hooked her feet around his calves so her frozen toes wouldn’t touch the floor. Settled, she reached up and drew his face down, meeting his lips with her own and offering comfort through the touch of her mouth.

Ben groaned and drew his tongue along the seam of her lips, licking into her mouth when she let him in, and heat curled in Rey’s belly. She clutched at him, and the blanket slipped down, sending a chill over her bare shoulders. His fingers dug into her hips so hard she knew she’d bruise, and she pressed against him, eager for more.

They made out until footsteps sounded overhead, and Ben pulled away to check his phone.

“They’re clearing the place now,” he said, then looked at Rey. He had lipstick smeared on his mouth, and she reached up to try and wipe it off. He grabbed the hem of his black t-shirt and used it to scrub at his mouth.

Rey used his phone light to check for any lingering color as he ran his fingers over her hair to smooth it. He smiled after a moment and offered her a clean edge of his shirt to wipe at her smudged lipstick. She did her best to tidy it and used the camera function on his phone to check herself.

She was more of a mess than she’d realized. She knew blood had gotten on her dress and legs, but it had also spattered her shoulders and neck. She probably had some in her hair, too.

The footsteps above sounded louder and closer, less careful, and Ben squeezed her upper arms, cocking a wry brow at her. “Ready to meet my parents?”

She lifted her chin to hide her nerves. “Absolutely.”

“There’s still time to back out.”

She offered him a soft smile, then. “Thank you. But no. I don’t run from things.”

He sighed and helped her stand. Linked their fingers as someone tried the basement door handle and, finding it locked, knocked. “Okay.”

“You’ll stay with me?” she asked, suddenly nervous as they climbed the stairs.

He squeezed her hand. “You won’t be alone.”

She squeezed back. “Neither will you.”

The smile he gave her before opening the door made her feel like she could face a dozen vampires bare-handed.

**Author's Note:**

> **Cut scene from the part where they were waiting for the first monster to break down the front door:**
> 
> “I blame Poe,” she muttered to Ben Solo, a boy she knew of but had never actually spoken to before tonight, a boy who stood beside her with decidedly steadier hands around a second wooden chair leg.
> 
> He snorted as Poe, on her other side, said, “Hey!”
> 
> “I like that idea,” said Ben, a hint of a smile on his face even as his eyes stayed fixed on the shaking door. “Let’s blame Poe.”
> 
> Poe, who had the third chair leg, huffed. “Go fuck yourselves.”
> 
> Finn, the owner of the chair’s fourth and final leg, laughed.


End file.
